Request For Feedback: Bullying

Nodin

LoLth wrote: »

I agree that no-one wants a nanny state where any argument / upset or non-conformity instantly elicits a "won't somebody think of the children!!!" response but your post suggests that there is some correlation between offensiveness and quality on a website. I would find both of these attributes to be almost exclusive of one another if not in direct opposition. .

I wouldn't say "offensiveness" had I a better way of putting it. The fact is that were things to be reduced to what no-one found offensive, we'd be in a bland world (given that no matter how innocous some things may seem to most of us, somebody somewhere will be offended).

LoLth

a good point. I actually just came back on to remove my post as in hindsight I think I didnt quite read your comment as you had intended it and I was concerned that my response might have been a bit "smartass"-ish

so, no offense meant. just quality

but just to be clear on the subject, while certainly insults and abuse are part of the issue under discussion, bullying is not limited to just that type of activity. Yes, I would like to see an end to abuse of any sort but beign a realist I knwo that someone is *always* going ot be offended by something someone else finds perfectly acceptable unless its so bland (to use your term) that its pretty much pointless. Thats pretty much why there is a "no abuse" rule but not a "no upsetting someone" rule. (unless there is a law behind it such as defamation or libel, then we sort of have to enforce it even if we can see a kernel of truth in what is being said)

Bullying can take many forms, abuse is possibly the most obvious of them and the easiest to deal with under our current policies, if the system works it should be stopped and handled long before it actually reaches the stage where it can be classed as bullying. Its the other forms though that we are trying to identify and bring into the spotlight and part of the reasoning behind this thread was, we dont necessariily know what the users of the site consider bullying so in order for us to make an effective policy we first need to know what it is we are trying to make a policy for. (and I have to say that the feedback - apart from maybe one sidetrek - has been very much appreciated thus far)

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Brown Bomber

Can I make a suggestion to tackle bullying? Forum rotation for mods. As someone who has witnessed bullying I am of the opinion that it can only exist in any significance with the acquiesence of mods, albeit unintentional.

Mods can get complacent over time and a culture can develop, especially in the polarising forums where there is an in-group and an out-group where bullying snowballs and the becomes the norm, especially if the mods are part of the same in-group and become part of the same phalanx opposed to outside views in thought if not in action.

Under a rotation system this wouldn't develop IMO as there would be a disconnect between mods and the subject matter and those with bullying tendencies would be less likely to act upon them if they are not part of the same clique as those who will pass judgement on their posts.

K-9

Well I've learned a lot from modding, stuff I wouldn't have batted an eyelid as a poster I'd take very seriously now. People do change their opinions over time, so don't feel afraid or feel it's a pointless exercise approaching a mod.

I've had maybe 9/10 DRP threads in my time and I'd say half were sorted out through pm. We do try and see things from the posters point of view, even when the ban hammer was handed out.

I would say you'd need a very thick skin to mod, bullied wouldn't be the word.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

jomc

I know a girl who was a poster on boards a few yrs ago, but left due to bullying. She knew a lot of posters and mods offline from the meet ups and joined a private ladies forum on boards at the invitation of some of the existing mods. It seems that she was accused of sharing info on the private forum while away with no access to internet) and 'convicted' with being asked about it or even being told what she was supposed to have done. She was locked out of the private girls forum, was ignored on threads on boards, deleted from fb and left out of meet ups until she gave up. She had thought she had met a nice group of girls and couldn't understand it all.

Elmidena

LoLth wrote: »

What do you define as bullying?
What do you feel is the best way to tackle it? Discussion? straight ban? warning then ban?
Is it actually an issue in your opinion or is it just the nature of semi-anonymous online discussion?
To what extent do you think Boards has a responsibility to respond to issues that occur outside of boards itself?

To respond to the OP, here's my 2c:
Bullying is making someone's life uncomfortable/miserable/etc for sport or out of a vindictive nature. Some of those guilty are low-level whisperers and some are roarers, but the goal is to drive down a person's esteem or voice bit by bit. On the internet, it is more difficult to prove but if someone alerts the higher-ups to whomever is making them feel unwelcome/uncomfortable then it can get examined. If no PMs are reported and the mods/cmods/admins have no reason to think bullying is taking place, then a kindly phrased PM stating such and a possible recommendation to use the ignore feature would be the best solution, IMO.

If the bullying is obvious to the higher-ups then I'd be in favour of an outright siteban for x amount of time. If an abusive PM gets a month to cool down, then there's absolutely no reason why sly digs etc should just get a forum ban if it's serious enough. The harsher the clamping down, the more likely it will disappear off the site, or re-regers will be spotted more quickly due to an apparent chip off their shoulder from the get-go, and out for "revenge" on those that wronged them.

The internet is full of keyboard warriors, but boards is a million miles from 4chan and its ilk. Here, you are registered with a certain amount of information available should you choose, and as a result I feel a sharp rap on the knuckles is warranted. In the instances where you can post anonymously, AFAIK they're all premoderated, so there's literally no excuse for any kind of muppetry.

I believe if the crime is just "they said this and I'm in a huff rarrrrghghgh!" then Boards should stay out of it. However, if there is any indication of a threat escalating to other sites, or a potential real-life situation then I believe that it should become involved and notify police etc if needs be. Of course that isn't applicable in every situation and Boards isn't a nanny, but I would like to think that it's there for the community when needed. (No need for it's a corporate entity now blah blah blah.... it's making money but it's still a family. A much bigger one now certainly, but a family all the same).

I remember not long after I signed up a certain female poster had a thread about how she wanted her account closed due to stalking/horrible questions on her formspring/real life implications. A lot of replies to her were to ignore the begrudgers but to keep in mind she'd left a LOT of identifiable info over her time on the site, including an unusually high amount of pictures of herself. I'm sure a lot of you know who I mean, but I had no interaction with her at all and so I don't want to name her to respect her privacy. This was before there was an option to close the account, and I think that appeared not long afterwards.

I know that there's a golden rule of you can shut the account but not delete the posts, but what happens to any attachments? Are they deleted? Any personal info I link in the main body of boards tend to be on photobucket where I can just delete or rename the image on there after a while and not have to worry about pics being quoted etc if I regret sharing them a while later. But in private fora I have used the "attach" feature a couple of times, would they remain if I shut off the account? I have no intentions of doing so, but I am sure they're things that the users of old might worry about, especially if it's something personal they've shared.

And on one final note, I read most of this thread (I admit to skimming over the OP essays at the end due to being tired at this hour) but something *did* stand out for me.

oscarBravo wrote: »

If you think that that idiot is being bullied, you're missing the point spectacularly.

Any further discussion of Pete's self-appointed victimhood is off-topic for this thread. Any more posts by any more of the obsessive-compulsive sock-puppets he continues to sign up to bang a drum nobody but him wants to hear will be deleted. Any replies to any of his posts will be deleted.

Stop feeding the troll, people. It's the kindest thing we can do for him. Maybe - I doubt it, but maybe - that way he'll finally get the message that this isn't his website, and he doesn't get to post here in contravention of the site's terms and conditions.

Back on topic.

I'm not intentionally breaking admin rules, but I think the bit I bolded and underlined is horrifically bad form and very much attack the poster not the post, ie the root of this discussion. I'm sorry but regardless of a person's opinion of another's perspective, I don't think it's right to refer to someone as "that idiot", particularly when you are implying that no bullying took place with said person, and furthermore saying that with the voice of an admin.

oscarBravo

Elmidena wrote: »

I'm not intentionally breaking admin rules, but I think the bit I bolded and underlined is horrifically bad form and very much attack the poster not the post, ie the root of this discussion.

I respect your view, but two things: first, it's not the root of the discussion. The discussion is about bullying, not attacking - a distinction you made clear in the first part of your post. Second: the former poster in question has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't believe the rules of the site apply to him. Sauce for the goose, etc. If the concern around bullying is someone being subtly or insidiously made to feel unwelcome on the site, then let me remove all subtlety: the poster in question is not welcome on this site, ever again.

Finally: I won't be entertaining any more discussion of the former poster in question on this thread, or of my response to him. It is off topic, no matter how on-topic you feel it is. Any more posts on that topic will be deleted, including any valuable or insightful points they otherwise contain.

looksee

The following quotes come from Motors. They are not bullying but are indicative of an attitude in that forum. All except the last one have been reported. The first batch got as far as Cat mods, but there has been no action or closure. The reference to Russians and Jews was reported but no action was taken, I didn't bother reporting the final quote.

My objection is to the speculative and generalised references to groups of people. A discussion about specific cases is fine, there is a discussion in the thread of the first group of quotes about the competence of specific elderly people on the road, that is not a problem. There is an overwhelming use of 'granny drivers' meaning slow and inept drivers, which is irritating, it could be compared with references to 'boy racers' meaning fast and inept, though one is a boy racer as a lifestyle choice, being a granny is simply a matter of fact. But again, its not really what I am objecting to.

In the quotes old and pissed are used synonymously, as are aul wan and lethal weapon, old dear - no idea etc.

'Probably an old or pi$$ed chap who will get away with it'

'I bet it was an aul wan they are lethal weapons on the roads'

'the amount of times id witnessed the oul farmer from down the country going the wrong way around a roundabout' - Really? Managed to identify an 'oul farmer from down the country' on a number of occasions as he did 120kph round a roundabout!

'An old dear, no doubt, no idea of what was going on' http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056815388

Remember folks, motor tax wasn't increased to give us new and better maintained roads, it was increased to pay back Russian Oligarchs, Wall St Jews and various other non too savory characters.

Originally Posted by Wexfordian
Thought that sort of rubbish went away with the pogroms.

Like I said, not for here. Just to say though that the social engineering is working just fine on you if you think you cant critisize a bunch of mobsters without being compared to a bigot. Anyway ......
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056830933&page=25

its in the hands of a judge who's probably hitting 80 and hasn't driven since the the traffic on the quays went in the opposite direction. All reason goes out the window.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056832981

The quote about Russian oligarchs and Wall street Jews was thanked by a mod, so I will not be reporting any more posts from Motors, in fact I won't be in that forum at all.

Madam_X

Yeh there are particular forums I've made a decision not to post on because there is an established consensus, and there'll be hell to pay if anyone contravenes this, no matter how respectfully and reasonably they do so.

It's not as easy to see this if you are a person who is part of the popular consensus but that doesn't mean it's not a reality.

Debator

looksee wrote: »

The following quotes come from Motors. They are not bullying but are indicative of an attitude in that forum. All except the last one have been reported. The first batch got as far as Cat mods, but there has been no action or closure. The reference to Russians and Jews was reported but no action was taken, I didn't bother reporting the final quote.

The quote about Russian oligarchs and Wall street Jews was thanked by a mod, so I will not be reporting any more posts from Motors, in fact I won't be in that forum at all.

Wow. Thanks for bringing those quotes to my attention. I don't browse the motors forum but I'm not surprised to see casual anti-semitic slurs tolerated on this site. This one particularly disgusting quote still sticks in my mind to this day. Some of the follow-up posts were heartbreaking, but at the end of the day, the bully won. He succeeded in driving out a Jew from boards.ie. The offending poster was banned temporarily (a slap on the wrist) but is now free to spout hatred again.

Many anti-semites like to hide under the guise of Pro-Palestinian and thus can harass other posters under the radar with impunity. In fariness, some of the more intelligent posters on the Palestinian side possess the cognitive ability to realise that Jewish =/= Israeli and vice versa.

I have yet to see mods take this issue seriously.

Madam_X

That comment re Jews has been deleted now. I wonder was it just a piss-take? Seems too mad to be serious. It is the kinda thing you'd read on the conspiracy theories forum and sometimes I've scratched my head at the Zionist conspiracy believing nut-jobbery in there. However I only pop in the odd time so can't be sure this stuff isn't adequately actioned.

That comment you link to is atrocious.

Nodin

We would seem to be a few miles off topic here....

looksee

Nodin wrote: »

We would seem to be a few miles off topic here....

I'm not sure that we are, I think the mindset that produces bullying is very much the same as that which is casually bigoted, abusive and has no respect for anyone else's feelings or beliefs.

brimal

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

It's funny the way the USA didn't want to accommodate these people when Alaska was suggested as a place to put them, out of sight out of mind so to speak. Even Hitler talked of planting the species on Madagascar. We all know they cause trouble as well as influencing American commerce and politics, the question is which Euro countries will be brave enough to front up to these people when they start the next great war.

Why is this user not banned from the whole site? This is a disgusting post.

Referring to Jews as a "species", constant use of "these people" and "we all know they cause trouble" - stuff like this should get a permanent ban.

Insect Overlord

brimal wrote: »

Why is this user not banned from the whole site? This is a disgusting post.

Referring to Jews as a "species", constant use of "these people" and "we all know they cause trouble" - stuff like this should get a permanent ban.

What exactly does that have to do with bullying other posters? Just report it and let the mods deal with it.

brimal

Insect Overlord wrote: »

What exactly does that have to do with bullying other posters? Just report it and let the mods deal with it.

It was mentioned a few posts up on this thread. It sickened me to read it, had to share.

The post was reported and the user only got banned from the specific forum he posted in. I'm not sure how long he got banned for even.

I thought something as bad as this warrants a permanent ban from the site. It's a vile post.

looksee

Insect Overlord wrote: »

What exactly does that have to do with bullying other posters? Just report it and let the mods deal with it.

How is it not? Any form of racism, sexism, or other ism is intended as a form of bullying. Mods can make a judgment call and not recognise it as bullying, so then nothing happens, reporters lose faith and stop reporting and the whole thing becomes acceptable.

Wibbs

To be fair while there will always be room for improvement in the vast vast majority of cases eejits who post tripe get sanctioned and are nearly always torn a new one by the rest of the community in the time between their posted idiocy and being warned/banned.

LoLth

looksee wrote: »

How is it not? Any form of racism, sexism, or other ism is intended as a form of bullying.

ideal-ism....modern-ism ?

Mods can make a judgment call and not recognise it as bullying, so then nothing happens, reporters lose faith and stop reporting and the whole thing becomes acceptable.

thats partly the reason for this thread. If users can know what bullying *is* and recognise it then they can report it to the mods as bullying and the mods having been as informed as the users can recognise it for what it is and know that this needs to be passed to an admin to get sorted out on a site-wide level. Mods become the second opinion and the admins the final overview.

Its not an issue the admins can do by themselves without the support of the mods and the mods cant do it without the support of the users and for it to work we all have to be on the same page and not have completely different opinions about what is and is not ok , borderline, straight abuse or bullying.

looksee

LoLth wrote: »

thats partly the reason for this thread. If users can know what bullying *is* and recognise it then they can report it to the mods as bullying and the mods having been as informed as the users can recognise it for what it is and know that this needs to be passed to an admin to get sorted out on a site-wide level. Mods become the second opinion and the admins the final overview.

Its not an issue the admins can do by themselves without the support of the mods and the mods cant do it without the support of the users and for it to work we all have to be on the same page and not have completely different opinions about what is and is not ok , borderline, straight abuse or bullying.

I just wrote a long and detailed answer, but then realised I was mostly repeating myself.

I agree with you, totally, though I am not entirely sure how your point relates to my post. However, unless you can train all mods to think exactly the same way, with the same base line of acceptability, you are never going to get a workable solution.

Ken.

How about this.

A new thread in feedback, sticky'd like the spammer thread.
If you think a post is bullying to you or someone else you report it. If nothing is done about it by the mods in 48 hours you report it in the new thread for the admins to rule on it. The admins could edit the post once they investigate and mark it, "action taken" "no action needed". Admins decision final as in all matters.

Super-Rush

ken wrote: »

How about this.

A new thread in feedback, sticky'd like the spammer thread.
If you think a post is bullying to you or someone else you report it. If nothing is done about it by the mods in 48 hours you report it in the new thread for the admins to rule on it. The admins could edit the post once they investigate and mark it, "action taken" "no action needed". Admins decision final as in all matters.

That's way too messy and would lead to on thread bickering between the accused and the accuser. Admins would spend most of their time cleaning up the threads than solving problems. You can't put a timeframe on action being take either. We're volunteers and can quite often be offline for long periods of time due to work or college, the same goes for admins. The reported posts forum is there for a reason and it works extremely well.

Lazarus2.0

ken wrote: »

A new thread in feedback, sticky'd like the spammer thread.
If you think a post is bullying to you or someone else you report it.

I dont believe reporting bullying on an open forum would be the way to go , for reasons outlined above by Stupid-Rush . Also someone who is genuinely being victimised would probably not want to run that gauntlet in the first place . I'm inclined to agree though that suspected bullying should be reported privately and those reports collated separate to other reported posts so patterns are more clearly discernible over time. That would require an option to tag or select Bullying as a reason for reporting - worth doing IMO if techs can do that .

It's been well documented on this thread that bullying is a multi-faceted word and can be taken to mean victimising a person , victimising a group of people (insert -ism here) , a forum being hostile , etc but my concern would only be for the former .

There are established avenues for complaining about forum members and moderation. There are established avenues for reporting 'hate' posts. There may be scope for improvement there and yes , I'd agree it falls within the definition of bullying but in those cases , as Wibbs succinctly puts it ..

Wibbs wrote: »

To be fair while there will always be room for improvement in the vast vast majority of cases eejits who post tripe get sanctioned and are nearly always torn a new one by the rest of the community in the time between their posted idiocy and being warned/banned.

There's little recourse for an individual being stalked/harrassed at present other than reporting posts that may go to different mods and therefore any cry for help might be discarded as a one-off despite multiple reports across forums . That's what needs to change IMO .

Boards is way ahead of most sites in terms of social conscience and leagues ahead of FB et al - I had (perhaps wrongly) assumed this thread was about pre-empting tragedy . I certainly read it as such regardless of the questionnaire in the OP .

Elmidena

ken wrote: »

How about this.

A new thread in feedback, sticky'd like the spammer thread.
If you think a post is bullying to you or someone else you report it. If nothing is done about it by the mods in 48 hours you report it in the new thread for the admins to rule on it. The admins could edit the post once they investigate and mark it, "action taken" "no action needed". Admins decision final as in all matters.

How about something *like* this, but more like the reported sig thread? AFAIK only sigs you've reported/yours has been reported are visible and the rest are super sekret for admin eyes only. Admins can debate amongst themselves given said accusation of bullying and reply with a "resolved" one way or another--if the reporter isn't directly involved in the conflict then quite frankly it's none of their business what happens. Similar to how bans aren't discussed unless it's your own. If the admins do decide to take issue they can have a word with the victim and see if they want action against perpetrator, or if they're bewildered anyone could see them as the victim of cyberbullying. This would also act as a way of recording someone's behaviour if there's ongoing lowlevel trolling, and could result in a ban/siteban being issued more effectively. I don't know, stuff makes sense in my head but not so coherent at the moment, I hope I'm getting my point across though

Ken.

I'm not going quote ye're posts but good points Rush,Lazarus and Elmidena.

El Guapo!

Rather than debating this back and forth and going round in circles, why not just do something a lot simpler?
We can debate this till the cows come home while going wildly off topic and argue in semantics, but what's really needed here is common sense.

Why not just do an updated site-wide charter and sticky it for a while in every forum?
The admins, Cmods, local mods etc can all come together and throw out ideas in the moderators forum as to what is to be in the updated charter. They can hash out the details regarding what is blatantly considered bullying and will not be tolerated. And they can talk amongst themselves and discuss the "grey areas".
Once that's done, common sense must come into play.

If a mod sees a post in their forum that they deem to be in breach of the charter and clearly nasty bullying behaviour, then a swift and lengthy ban should be implemented.
If there's a post that could fall into a "grey area", then maybe before any action is taken, they could pm another mod for a second opinion first.
If a poster has a history of these "grey area" posts, then maybe they should receive a pm saying their posting privileges have been temporarily suspended while an investigation takes place. Then, as quickly and efficiently as possible, the mods/admins etc could look into the posters history and decide whether a ban or a stern warning is appropriate.
And the usual DRP procedure would be in place for any queries or complaints by the "bully" in question. Although I think when it gets to that stage, they wouldn't have much of a case as the mods have already went through a series of steps that would almost prove without any doubt that the action taken was indeed necessary.

Scioch

I'm sure its already been mentioned (only seeing this now) but the only real thing that comes close to bullying that I've seen would be people thanking abusive posts.

Its happened to me but I wouldnt take it to heart. But I could see how someone would. You get 5-6 people maybe more thanking verbal abuse towards you particularly name calling and its not nice, if there was previous between you and someone who thanks it then it can go one stage further too. And only one person is gonna get done for it and all the rest of them get a free insult basically.

[-0-]

Bullying is very subjective. One person may see something as an attempt at bullying, while another could see it as joking around. It's difficult to try to understand what is going on between two people in a conversation - you are not them, however if someone feels they are the victim of bullying then that should certainly be reported and acted upon.